Nokia, Motorola May Say Sales in India, China Buoyed Earnings

Bloomberg.com reports that "Nokia (NOK) and Motorola (MOT) will probably say handset sales in China and India buoyed earnings in the second quarter."

According to analyst estimates, "Nokia may say July 20 net income rose 25 percent to 1 billion euros ($1.27 billion)." Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Coleman thought "Motorola, which reports July 19, was probably $725 million. Motorola's year-earlier profit of $933 million was boosted by a $425 million gain from the sale of an investment."

John van den Berg at AZL Vermogensbeheer said, "Phone makers need to innovate and bring some tougher competition to the likes of BlackBerry to raise the growth rates in developed markets. I'm relatively positive about the mobile-phone market, but if there is an economic slowdown, the emerging markets will feel it first."

Neil Mawston at Strategy Analytics said, "We expect a similar story to the first quarter: these two performing well, with almost all the rest of the market struggling." Mawston predicted "Nokia may have increased its share to 35 percent from the first quarter's 32.8 percent."

Nomura International predicted "growth in global mobile-phone shipments will probably slow to 11 percent in the second half from 16 percent in the first half. Average prices are also falling as more phones are sold in China and India."

Martin Sirch at HSBC Investment said, "The main growth regions are in the emerging markets, where people want cheaper handsets. In Europe, it's very saturated and phone companies require cheaper handsets and subsidize handsets less."